Marcus Smart hustled back on defense to prevent a dunk and went careening into the crowd behind the basket. That's when all the trouble started. Smart got in the face of a Texas Tech fan who appeared to say something and shoved him. (Feb. 9)

The incident took place after Smart fell behind the basket. He was being helped up when he got into an argument of words with a Texas Tech fan sitting at court side. Smart then shoved the fan and received a technical foul.

Smart said that the fan made a racial slur towards him, which led to the shove. After pushing the fan, the man, a middle aged air traffic controller named Jeff Orr, just laughed at Smart. In a statement, Orr said that he called Smart a "piece of crap" but never used a racial slur.

The only punishment that can come to fans has to come from the school where the incident occurred and Texas Tech cleared Orr of any wrongdoing, saying there was no evidence outside of Smart's accusation that a racial slur was used.

Two players from the past chimed in on Twitter. Former Texas A&M Aggies star Bryan Davis said that Orr used to talk "crazy" to him every time he played in Texas Tech. Former Baylor Bears star John Lucas III said that Orr talked "crazy" to him as well and then mentioned how Orr is a grown man talking to college kids in this way.

Despite all that, Texas Tech believes Orr is the model citizen here and Marcus Smart will now serve his three game suspension for retaliation.

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Shawn S. Lealos is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience in the media. Shawn graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2000 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism where he also won numerous Gold Circle and Oklahoma SPJ awards for his student sports journalism. After a few years of writing for small local newspapers and freelancing for numerous national publications, Shawn took his skills to the Internet where he still covers his alma-mater as well as other Oklahoma and national sporting news. Feel free to contact Shawn with any questions or comments.

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